what is the sense of how serious they see the chemical weapons situation in syria and how imminent it is that they think the syrians might do something that would cause the united states and allies to have to do something. >> this gets to being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, being able to deal with the fiscal cliff but also potential chemical weapon crises in syria. if the whitehouse wasn't concerned the president wouldn't have gone out and delivered that speech earlier this week. >> rose: finally there's this thing that he has to continue with. he's got a new administration coming up in january. we're now in december. who is handling that transition, who is setting up the process of selecting a new secretary of state, a new secretary of defense, a new chief of staff, a new head of the cia? >> so peat rauss is a deputy chief of staff senior advisers, he's playing a central role on all of this. based on our reporting it look like what the president is going to do is first announce his security team and that could come as early as next week so he would be announcing at the